


Sticking Points

by terminallybored



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Holly is better at feelings than Billy, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Summer of 1986, Swimmer Steve Harrington, all kids love Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24726409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallybored/pseuds/terminallybored
Summary: The summer of 1986 doesn't look much different to Billy than the summer of 1985 did, when it started. Few more scars, few more burned bridges, but not much else has changed. He's still working at the pool, and still giving swimming lessons to bratty kids. Today the bratty kid is Holly Wheeler.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 7
Kudos: 149





	Sticking Points

It’s funny the things that stick in life. Billy has found himself thinking that a lot lately. His days are eerily similar to last summer, right down to the weight of the lifeguard whistle against his chest. Sure, there was the brush with actual fucking monsters (not really a brush so much as a head-on collision) but… he didn’t have any better ideas once summer came around again, really. It’s been long enough that he can drown out the memory of that voice that screamed inside his head that the sun would kill him. He still needs a job, still misses the beaches of California, and the best Hawkins can offer is this goddamn pool so...

It’s not like he has any more bad memories of this place than he does of anywhere else.

Sitting on the corner of the pool beside him, dangling her legs into the shallows, is Holly Wheeler. She’s got goggles on her head that look too big for her, with worn blue rubber around the lenses. The neon fish on her swimsuit with the tail the trails on and on reminds Billy vaguely of album art. He’d compliment her taste if he thought she did it on purpose.

Talk about things that stick. Billy’s not sure if Karen has regrets one year later, or if she’s still hanging onto some kind of guilt, but she was insistent that Billy had to give Holly swimming lessons. The size of the tip she gave him and the fact that she gave it to him up front suggests guilt.

“I already know how to swim,” Holly tells him matter-of-factly. She’s staring at him with the same huge dark eyes that her brother and sister both have. She’s blond as fuck, though. Where the hell did that come from? Karen must have used so much peroxide when she was knocked up that it soaked into the womb or something.

“I know.”

“I was here every day last summer,” Holly persists. “Swimming.”

“I _know_ ,” Billy repeats. “I was the lifeguard last summer.”

She squints at him, like she’s trying to remember if that’s true, probably stretching the limits of her 6-year-old memory span.

“So you already know I’m a good swimmer,” she says. Billy does know. She knows most of what he’s supposed to teach kids her age, but that’s her problem for having a mom who runs too wet for the pretty ones.

“I’m gonna make you a better swimmer,” he says. “Your form is shit.”

“You can’t say that!” she gasps. “Steve said I’m really good!”

Billy expected her to say he can’t say ‘shit’ because kids believe in rules like that. She doesn’t, probably because she has to hear worse than that from her brother. The Steve thing… Billy isn’t expecting it, but it isn’t a surprise, either. Hawkins’ Golden Boy is gunning for mother of the year. And hey, in this town where his competition is mostly the Karens and the Susans, he just might get it.

“Steve is a nice person.” That’s not Billy’s favorite thing to admit. Makes him feel guilty too easily. “But he’s also a liar.”

And Billy would know.

* * *

_Steve has been to the hospital room a handful of times. Billy suspects he’s been to the parking lot way more often because Neil and Susan sure as hell aren’t bringing Max by as often as she’s here. He just sits there and makes chit-chat every time. He’s good at that, at talking and saying nothing at all. Billy can’t decide if it’s because that’s what silver spooners learn or if Steve is just actually a dumbass._

_“You know I don’t actually care, right?” Billy finally says, cutting off Steve’s intense re-telling of his debate with Keith about whether or not Teen Wolf belongs in the horror section._

_“You could tell me what you do care about and then I can talk about that,” Steve offers, not missing a beat. Billy rolls his eyes and falls back into the silence he’s lived in for most of Steve’s visits._

_Steve groans._

_“Billy. Come on, talk to me. I’m not still mad about last year, you know. We can just... start over.”_

_There are no free passes in life. Billy knows that for a fact. Which means Steve is just saying the right thing you’re supposed to say when someone is in the hospital. He’s a fucking liar, is what he is._

* * *

“Steve is _not_ a liar,” Holly huffs. “He was a swimmer. He knows when people are good.”

“Steve’s sport was basketball.” Billy grabs the pink boogie board from the side of the pool and drops it into the water. “He just happens to have a pool in his backyard.”

“He was a swimmer when he was dating my sister.” Holly wrinkles her nose at the board and kicks it, making it float off further into the pool. “I’ve seen other swimming lessons. You want me to hold onto that and kick, but I already know how to kick.”

Billy… sort of believes that because Steve was never all that great at basketball, but he did have a jock reputation before Billy came to town. And he’s already kind of wondered sometimes why the guy always brings his pack of kids to the public pool instead of just using his back yard. But then Holly decides to be a massive pain in the ass and he decides he still doesn’t care about any mystery involving Steve Harrington.

He has to handle the Wheeler brat instead.

“Look.” Billy drops his elbow to his knee so his hunched posture puts him on eye-level with Holly. “I know you know how to kick. But we have to go through the lessons, got it?” She’s pursing her lips like she’s about to start bitching again, so Billy just brings out the big guns. “And if I tick off all the little boxes of shit you know how to do, you get a whistle at the end of the week.”

That gets her attention. Bribing always works with kids, but he’s pretty sure Holly knows it’s a bribe. She understands checking off boxes that might be pointless in exchange for a reward. Billy would bet anything her limp-dick dad uses that technique all the time.

“I want the whistle,” she says, pulling her goggles down over her eyes. They slide down her nose, the band way too big on her head to form anything closed to a seal.

“Those are too big for you,” Billy says, holding out his hand. “I’ll hold ‘em. Go get the board.”

Holly pulls them off and hands them to him. “I want them back,” she warns. “Steve gave them to me for my swimming class. He won a trophy once with them and said they’ll bring me good luck.”

Billy doesn’t believe in luck, and personally thinks there would have been more use in Steve just getting Holly a pair of goggles that fit right. But people like stories and sentiments like that. And Steve likes giving people shit.

* * *

_There’shairspray on the table beside Billy’s bed. Not the right kind, mainly because it’s the expensive shit, where the can is muted chrome, and the logo is in thick, flowy letters. Max sure as hell didn’t buy it. There’s not a long list of people visiting him in the hospital, but there’s only one who would think doing his hair would make him feel better._

_Someone (meaning Max) must have shared with Steve that Billy’s latest ‘milestone’ (because every single fucking thing counts as a milestone if your injuries fuck you up enough) is being allowed to shower on his own. He’s happy about that, don’t get him wrong. The nurses around here are not the stuff of wet dreams, and being sponged by a 60-something who talks about her collapsed uterus was pretty much hell. But seriously, he didn’t need that shared with Harrington. That guy is being weird enough about this already._

_Billy hates that he kind of wants to. Wants to wash his hair, which feels grimy and flat from being slept on so much. Wants to pick it with a comb while it’s damp, give it some lift, rub it dry with a t-shirt so it won’t frizz... and yeah, maybe spray it in place a little. And he really fucking hates that the town pretty boy, with his head of brunette fluff and nothing else, understands that so well._

_He dumps the can in the trash and makes sure Steve can see it in there._

* * *

Holly retrieves the board and kicks her way back over with it. Billy mentally checks off that box in his head. Yeah, he’ll probably make her do it some more just so she’s quiet for longer. He’s gonna milk the promise of that graduation whistle for as long as he can. But the kid can clearly already kick.

“Don’t scuff them,” she reminds him when he must run a thumb over the rim of the goggles in the wrong way or something. Billy sighs internally. Clearly Harrington’s next generation of kids are already forming their attachments to him. Which means Billy is going to have to see him shuttling kids to and from the pool well after his current bunch gets their licenses.

“I’m not scuffing Steve’s shitty goggles, kid,” he snaps.

“They’re _my_ goggles now,” she says, the imperious tone grating in the same way her brother’s does. And her sister’s. Fucking Wheelers, man. “And you should be nicer to Steve.”

“Steve isn’t even here. Why does it matter?” Billy sets the goggles on the side of the pool so the kid can stop glowering at him.

“Because he said I should be nice to you,” she says,tossing the boogie board up onto the poolside where it turns the stones darker with a splatter of water.

God Billy wants a fucking cigarette. “Can’t imagine why he did that. We’re not friends.”

* * *

_“We’re not buddies, Harrington.” There’s venom in Billy’s voice, but Steve just looks tired. And kind of frustrated, like he knows he opened his mouth too wide and can’t take it back now._

_“I didn’t say we were. Or that we were going to be.”_

_He didn’t. But ‘I can help with your PT if you want’ isn’t exactly something to say to the guy you had a fistfight with a few months ago. It’s a nice offer and it’s coming after too many goddamn nice things, and Billy… Billy is over it. Harrington just keeps showing up and talking and trying to act like he and Billy are just gonna be nice to each other. Like that’s a thing that happens in real life._

_“I don’t want your fucking help.”_

_“I know.” And Steve sounds like he does know. Maybe he knows exactly how much Billy hates every second he insists on sitting in that plastic chair, hates every chipper word out of his mouth. And still keeps coming like a sadist. Or a masochist. Or both in one fucking punching bag of a package._

_“So fuck off! Stop showing up to visit me, stop leaving shit around my room life a fucking creeper! Get on with your shitty life, maybe go collect some more kids to need you!” Billy is sure some of that wounds. If Steve’s fall from grace in his senior year was a Greek tragedy, his languishing in a humiliating job while everyone else went off to college was some depressing Dickens shit. The kind where everyone knows, and everyone judges and tuts about it. But other than a little tightening in the jaw, Steve doesn’t react._

_Billy’s stomach does. Turns sour and roils and wants to take it all back as badly as Steve wanted to take back his offer to help. But the words are out and it’s full steam ahead, and he’s slapping his palm repeatedly against the button to call the nurse before Steve can do something stupid like apologize, like he’s the one who did something wrong._

_Steve doesn’t visit again. He can’t. Billy tells the nurses he doesn’t want him in there, and never asks if he tries to come back._

* * *

“You know, if you’re not nice to people, then no one will by nice to you,” Holly tells him, breaking Billy out of his reverie. The wisdom of a 6-year-old. “But if you’re nice, like to Steve, then maybe you can be friends.”

“Wow, is that how friends work?” Billy rolls his eyes, but it’s probably lost on Holly since he has sunglasses on. “Consider me fuckin’ schooled.”

Holly grasps at the lip of the pool a few times , trying to pull herself out. It doesn’t work, so she just waves a hand at Billy’s arm until he obliges and holds it out to her. She grabs it and pull herself out of the water, planting her butt back on the corner of the pool.

“Thank you,” she says. “Now you say ‘you’re welcome’ to me.”

“Trying to improve my manners, kid?”

“Yes. Good manners make it easier to make friends.”

Billy sighs and hands her back her goggles. His brain hurts, and his chest feels a little tight from too much thinking. Too many memories that are still fresh enough to sting. A cursory glance at the row of moms confirms that no, Karen didn’t stick around. Definitely a guilt thing.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we skip the rest of the baby lessons today and I buy your silence with a popsicle from the staff freezer?”

Holly, like all smart kids, knows when she’s got a good offer on the table. She nods immediately, fitting Steve’s goggles back on her head. “Deal.”

Billy stands up and heads for the staff office, with small, wet footsteps slapping the ground behind him. Holly might be okay. She’s a quick kid, and not quite as annoying as her siblings. Yet. She might even be right about a few things too.

And with any luck, as long as there’s a decent stash of flavors to barter with in the freezer, she might even be useful in figuring out how Steve likes people to be nice to him.


End file.
